Formation

of Public Opinion

16.

Danger of oppression always present

means and what are the possible benefits that may be derived from it. Then, by degrees, the governed may be admitted to participation in their own government.1

The creation of an intelligent and disinterested public opinion regarding matters political cannot be the work of a day. The instrumentalities for bringing it into existence must be the schools and colleges, the press, social and political reform associations, and, above all, the personal work and influence of those fortunate individuals who have been able to secure a specialized political education in the higher institutions of learning.

It is, however, unfortunately true, as the experience of all nations has demonstrated, that scholastic or mere academic education alone has not inherent in it the force to create good citizenship. Nor have democratic or republic institutions this power, for it has been found that, even where the right of self-government has been granted to its fullest possible extent, corruption and self-seeking upon the part of those in authority have not been absent. Nor, for this matter, has the danger of oppression of the governed been averted. History shows that a people needs almost as much protection against the governments which they themselves have established and which, in theory at least, they maintain, as they do against governments in whose creation they have played no part. Thus only by eternal vigilance can liberty be preserved.2

Popular government, therefore, offers no absolute guar

'On the general question of governing backward peoples, see Adam Smith, Essay on Colonies; Mill, "Of the Government of Dependencies by a Free State," Representative Government, Chap. XVIII; Lewis, Government of Dependencies. Ön mandates, see Hicks, The New World Order; Woolf, Economic Imperialism and Empire and Commerce in Africa; Johnston, The Backward Peoples.

On specific problems: Egypt-Chirol, The Egyptian Question; Report of the Milner Mission to Egypt, 1921, Cmd. (1131): India-Macdonald, The Government of India; Barker, The Future Government of India; Curtis, Dyarchy; Philippines-Blount, The American Occupation of the Philippines; Worcester, The Philippines Past and Present.

"The first element of good government, therefore, being the virtue and intelligence of the human beings composing the community, the most important point of excellence which any form of government can possess is to promote the vir

be inert and incom

petent

antee that, under it, civil liberty will thrive or that substantial political equality will prevail. The laws may be both unwise and unjust, and so imperfectly enforced that life, liberty, and property are insecure. And the people People may generally may be so inert and incompetent that, whatever may be their political rights, they in fact permit their leaders or self-appointed political bosses to wield the real power in the State. Thus there is some truth in the statement made by Justice Stephen in his Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity that "the man who can sweep the greatest quantity of fragments into one heap will govern the rest. The strongest man in one form or another will always rule. If the government is a military one, the qualities which make a man a great soldier will make him a ruler. If the government is a monarchy, the qualities which kings value in counsellors, in administrators, in generals will give power. In a pure democracy the ruling men will be the wire-pullers and their friends; but they will be no more on an equality with the people than soldiers or ministers of State are on an equality with the subjects of a monarchy." When Justice Stephen here states that these are necessary results he is certainly wrong. But that they are possible results cannot be questioned.

Summarizing and repeating, then, what has been said, it is seen that in order that a government may be both efficient and popular, the following conditions must be present:

tue and intelligence of the people themselves. The first question in respect to any political institutions is, how far they tend to foster in the members of the community the various desirable qualities, moral and intellectual; The government which does this the best has every likelihood of being the best in all other respects, since it is on these qualities, so far as they exist in the people, that all possibility of goodness in the practical operations of the government depends.

A government is to be judged by its action upon men, and by its action upon things; by what it makes of the citizens, and what it does with them; its tendency to improve or deteriorate the people themselves, and the goodness or badness of the work it performs for them, and by means of them. Government is at once a great influence acting on the human mind, and a set of organized arrangements for public business: in the first capacity its beneficial action is chiefly indirect, but not therefore less vital, while its mischievous action may be direct." Mill, Representative Government, Chap. II.

Possible

dangers

Essentials

of Popular Government

гог

Nature of
Public
Opinion

1. The existence of what may truly be said to be a public opinion.

2. That this public opinion shall be intelligent and well disposed.

3. That means shall exist for giving to it authentic ex

pression.

4. That Constitutional devices shall be created for making this public opinion, when authentically expressed, controlling upon those in political authority.

5. That an effective administrative machinery shall be established and maintained.

An opinion cannot be held to be public unless it is substantially shared by a dominant portion of the community.1 This does not mean that all persons must think alike, but that, upon fundamentals, they are in agreement; though differing upon unessential matters, they are able to coöperate with regard to essentials. Nor does the public opinion which popular government presupposes make impossible or undesirable the segregation of the people into different political parties holding different opinions with regard to broad public policies. But, if the political mind of the people is to be in a sound condition there should be, back of these party differences, an agreement with reference to the value of the government which is to be maintained and the national ideals which are to be realized.

The more generally an opinion is held the more public it may be said to be. In any community of men, that which is termed public opinion is a result, not of the opinions of all of its members, but only of those persons, few or many, who are led to think and to form judgments regarding matters of general interest. And it is evident that

1On the nature of public opinion, see Bryce, The American Commonwealth, Part IV; Lewis, On the Influence of Authority in Matters of Opinion; Wallas, Human Nature in Politics and The Great Society, Chap. XI; Dicey, Law and Public Opinion in England; Lowell, Public Opinion and Popular Government; Maine, Popular Government.

211

Influenced

rational

in any State only a certain number of citizens can be said to have clearly formed opinions as to political matters. Furthermore, it is a familiar fact that the greater number of those persons who do express political opinions base by nontheir judgments, not upon reasoned convictions enlightened by accurate knowledge, but upon prejudices, selfinterest, emotional feelings, traditional party affiliations, or, most often of all, upon the assertions of others in the soundness of whose judgment they have confidence.1

It is this last circumstance which gives to public opinion a more reasoned basis than it otherwise would have, for, as a general proposition, it may be said that those persons whose opinions influence the opinions of others are men who have some knowledge of the matters concerned and have, to some extent at least, arrived at their own conclusions by processes of reasoning. Where this is not so and where the political leaders of the people are not men of knowledge and good judgment, what is termed public opinion must be largely without a rational basis. There is, then, no surer way of testing the political soundness of a given community than by determining the ability and honesty of its leaders. Those persons who are not able to accept the basic principles upon which an existing government rests are termed "irreconcilable," and, when they are numerous, they constitute a menace to political stability.2 Thus, for a long time, the Jacobites in England and the Bonapartists in France, were irreconcilables since they were united not by any common opinion with regard to what public policies should be pursued by the existing government, but were antagonistic to the very nature of that government itself. So also in Germany, before the World War, the Social Democratic Party differed so fun

For a brilliant discussion of the influence of the press, see Lippmann, Liberty and the News. Of interest also are Hayward and Langdon-Davies, Democracy and the Press, and Baumann, The Press: Its Power, its Function, and its Future. 2See Lowell, Public Opinion and Popular Government, p. 32 ff.

elements

221

Irrecon

cilable

Parties

damentally from the other parties with regard to the maintenance of monarchical powers that a coöperation between it and those in authority was almost impossible. And thus we find that the Kaiser and his Chancellor, though willing by various concessions to seek the support of the other political parties in the Reichstag, were never willing to have dealings upon any terms with the Social Democrats. There can be no doubt that this chasm between the Social Democratic and the other political parties has been a serious evil in German political life and partially explains the slowness with which true popular government has developed in that country.1

66

In England the Irish "Home Rule" Party has exhibited irreconcilable characteristics, in that it has shown a willingness to bring parliamentary government to a complete standstill in order to force a concession to its demands. Thus Professor Redlich in his History of Procedure in the House of Commons, speaking of Parnell, says that he 'adopted and used obstruction, not as a method of parliamentary warfare but as a weapon with which to combat and, if possible, to destroy, the united parliament as a constitutional device." This led, in January, 1881, to the memorable sitting at which the Speaker, supported, of course, by the Ministry, assumed the dictatorial power of refusing to allow the debate to continue and putting the question to passage forthwith. And, as is well known, this led to the adoption by the Commons of rules of procedure which, since that time, have enabled the party in power to overcome the resistance of those members who may desire to prevent parliamentary government from functioning. 3

1Cf. Bevan, German Social Democracy.

2On Parnell as an irreconcilable, see McCall, The Business of Congress, p. 86. This incident has been interestingly described by Baumann, Persons and Politics of the Transition, pp. 27-30.

"During the eighteenth and the first half of the nineteenth century, the House of Commons was governed by custom and precedent, the 'lex et consuetudo Parliamenti', which were left to the Speaker and the clerks at the table to enounce.